The Liberal Narrative

Ideas that are, in George Orwell’s phrase, "so stupid that only intellectuals believe them." -John Steele Gordon, The American

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts. -"Bookworm"

The Left needs racism, because unlike their good, old-fashioned Marxist forebears, the postmodern Left’s politics is not rooted in economics or history but in narrative — the most adolescent narrative: Good Guys and Bad Guys. -Kevin D. Williamson

Conservatives have their Constitution. Progressives have their Narrative. The current battle for America is between these two concepts, and each side uses different rules to fight it. One set of rules is consistent with an unchanging objective: limited government and individual freedoms.

The other side's rules are as fickle as their goals, which are never fully disclosed beyond the equivocal references to fairness and hyphenated forms of justice. They will have to remain vague and deny their true allegiances until a time when American voters will no longer squirm at the word "socialism."

The White House website has censored a video of French Pres. Francois Hollande saying that “Islamist terrorism” is at the “roots of terrorism.” The White House briefly pulled video of a press event on terrorism with Pres. Obama, and when it reappeared on the WhiteHouse.gov website and YouTube, the audio of Hollande’s translator goes silent, beginning with the words “Islamist terrorism,” then begins again at the end of his sentence. Even the audio of Hollande saying the words “Islamist terrorism” in French have, apparently, been edited from the video.

The left-liberal elite that attained cultural dominance between the 1960s and the 1980s-and that since 2008 has seen itself as being on the cusp of political dominance as well-is undergoing a crisis of authority, and its defenses are increasingly ferocious and unprincipled.

About 45 percent of Republicans said they were very happy, compared with 30 percent of Democrats. Republicans have been happier in surveys going back to 1972, the Pew study notes. The reason might seem obvious, since “Republicans tend to have more money than Democrats, and–as we’ve already discovered–people who have more money tend to be happier,” the report states. But even after adjusting for income, poor Republicans are happier than poor Democrats, and rich Republicans are happier than rich Democrats.

Today's liberal left conceives of itself as being on the side of all that is good, right and reasonable. It caricatures the right as racist, extremist, greedy, dishonest, fanatically religious, prone to violence...

Tammy Bruce: Yes, it was; it was shocking. For me it was quite life-changing in my sense of how I viewed the world and I was also, when it comes to my view of Christians, quite surprised by how happy they were.

I mean, I remember being on the left; no one is happy, trust me. They (are the) biggest group of miserable people you would ever want to meet. Everything is wrong, everything is going bad, everyone is after you, everyone wants to get you, people are building camps.

Harper‘s magazine editor Lewis Lapham is being appropriately mocked for a major pre-GOP-convention boner. In the September issue of his magazine, which has been on newsstands for over a week, Lapham writes about the “Republican propaganda mill” and the GOP convention: “The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal – government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maiden’s prayer — and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that [Richard] Hofstadter didn’t stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the American political circus?” That’s right, Lapham wrote about the GOP convention speeches before anyone even stepped to the podium. Lapham has apologized for what he’s calling a “rhetorical invention,” use of “poetic license,” and a “mistake.”

"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that. No ordinary man could be such a fool."

Because it is difficult for liberals to understand that people might oppose them on substantive as well as moral grounds, their analyses of the election results were as flawed as their takes on the horse race. -Matthew Continetti

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president." -Al Gore

NPR's Ron Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. "In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives," he said.

It's a deeply felt conviction among liberals that they are the caring party. It's not too much to say that liberals are quite confident that they are nicer, more moral people than conservatives. -Mona Charen

Today's liberal left conceives of itself as being on the side of all that is good, right and reasonable. It caricatures the right as racist, extremist, greedy, dishonest, fanatically religious, prone to violence. -James Taranto

The touchstone of liberalism is tolerance of differing ideas. Yet this mob exists to enforce conformity of thought and to delegitimize any dissent from its sanctioned worldview. Intolerance is its calling card. -Kirsten Powers

During the time of the Soviet Union the role of the state in economy was made absolute, which eventually lead to the total non-competitiveness of the economy. That lesson cost us very dearly. I am sure no one would want history to repeat itself. -Vladimir Putin

They scream about "white privilege" and decrying all white people as racist simply because of their skin color. They then top of their own racist rhetoric with claims that it’s impossible for blacks to be racist. -Tom Knighton

"And it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama said.

"It’s the flag of the tea party Republicans. They are radical terrorists and they want to take matters into their own hands, affecting our children and families with violence and firearms on the border and in our cities."

[Oct 2016]: If you have bought into the simplistic explanation that conservatives and Republicans are to blame for racism, poverty, and wars, and are perplexed that these things have gotten worse during the last eight years of a liberal Democrat president, don’t blame yourself.